Canadian Thanksgiving.

[Lallans]

I've heard of people smuggling cheap cigarettes, but never turkeys.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and may I remind you to be thankful for unpleasant things you don't have.

I don't want to sound rude or ignorant, and I guess i can google it but what is the history behind the Canadian Thanksgiving? I sort of understand the "history" behind the U.S. thanksgiving but never the Canadian, or why it's on different days.

The joke used to be that you could spot a Canadian in a Vermont grocery store because he had a frozen turkey under each arm and a gallon jug of milk (89 cents or less in those days) in each hand.

I don't know that there's any big story behind our holiday. The date was supposedly chosen because it roughly corresponds with the Canadian harvest season and also with quite a few tradition harvest celebrations in Northern European cultures- but for all I know it was set up at the behest of the Canadian Turkey Marketing Board. And for sure, the exact date was picked to match the US Columbus Day holiday, for the sake of convenience. I would guess we would have gone with the US date for Thanksgiving except for the Thursday thing. Whatever, it works pretty well outside of Quebec, where it tends to get ignored as an Anglo-American concept; nor are Les Quebecois traditionally big fans of turkey or, as I already related, pumpkin pie. I always found that strange since they were here in advance of us Ecossais and would have found both in abundance. But take out turkey and pumpkin pie and what's left?